Drugs?” Mom asked me Monday afternoon as I waited in the armchair by the window.
“What’s that?” I replied. My eyes were fixed on the driveway. Dylan was supposed to arrive at any minute.
“Drugs?” Mom asked again.
“No thanks,” I responded. “I did a bump of coke with breakfast.”
“Ha-ha, hilarious,” she said, and reached to put her hand on my shoulder, but pulled back when she remembered how I’d been avoiding hugs lately. “I mean with this Cranberry girl. I looked her up online and she, well, her hairstyle choices were interesting.”
“So she’s on drugs?”
“Hey, all I’m saying is that the druggies stood out when I was in high school. A girl with orange hair? Come on.”
“Did you really call people druggies?”
“What do you call them?”
“Katelyn Ogden.”
“Wait, so Katelyn did . . . ?”
“Not like meth or anything. But I understand that she dabbled.”
Protip: When your parents ask you to confirm rumors that you know are factually true, it’s best to start your confession with “I understand that . . .” Because, one, it’s not a lie. You do understand. You understand the hell out of it. But, two, it distances you from the rumor. You’re analytical about things, not emotional, which means you’re not all wrapped up in the mess. You’re an observer.
“Dabbled?” Mom asked. “Who else dabbles? Shit. Tess doesn’t dabble, does she?”
“Tess neither dabbles, tinkers, nor flirts,” I said. “Don’t worry about darling Tessy. She is squeaky clean.”
I wasn’t thrilled about the momentum of this conversation because it was obviously barreling toward me, a serial dabbler. I had yet to tell my parents about my dabbling, though I suspect they had their suspicions. Luckily, the momentum was stopped in its tracks by an ice-cream truck that pulled into our driveway.
When Dylan had texted earlier that he was coming to pick me up, he hadn’t specified the mode of transportation. I had wondered for a second if he expected me to also have a skateboard, but I quickly convinced myself that he wasn’t that naive. I’d never seen him driving a car, which led to me picturing horse-drawn carriages, Segways, and even bicycles built for two. I definitely did not expect a rusty old ice-cream truck, though I suppose I should have.
I leapt from the couch and through the front door to intercept Dylan as he made his way up the walkway. “Nice ride,” I said. “A bit cliché, don’t you think?”
He didn’t take the bait and turn around to look at the boxy white truck with the faded Popsicle and sugar cone decals on it. He simply shrugged and said, “Date a lot of ice-cream men?”
“Of course you don’t show up in a Hyundai or something,” I said. “You’ve gotta be the kid who rolls up in something quirky, endearing, and yet strangely manly.”
“First time I’ve driven it actually. I usually take my mom’s minivan or my brother’s pickup, but they’re both occupied.”
“You’ve got a brother? I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
Mom was in the doorway, watching our exchange, sizing up the chariot that was going to whisk me away. I wondered what she knew about Dylan. Surely the rumors hadn’t reached the adult sphere. But you never know what she overhears at the deli.
“Nice to see you again, Dylan,” she said. “I’m guessing that thing doesn’t have airbags.”
Dylan shook his head and said, “Seat belts though. And it reaches a maximum speed of forty-five miles per hour when it’s going downhill, so there won’t be any drag racing, I can assure you of that. Strictly an around-town vehicle.”
“Like a trolley car,” I added. “You’re not afraid of trolley cars, are you, Mom?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure what to be afraid of these days.”
While I would have loved to shrug off her worries as typical parental jitters, how could I possibly do that? It was a tough time to be a kid, but, good God, I couldn’t imagine what sort of panic had overtaken our parents’ brains. The best I could do was redirect things with a joke. Only it wasn’t really a joke. It was more of a test.
“Don’t worry, Momma Bear,” I said. “Dylan is only taking me to meet his three kids and then we’re going to burn down a convenience store or two.”
She rolled her eyes. A good sign. She detected hyperbole.
Dylan, on the other hand, rolled with the punches, which I wasn’t sure how to interpret. “That wasn’t the plan, actually,” he said. “But I guess if we have time, we can fit those things in.”
Grumbling audibly, Mom accepted this all as teenage snark. “Be safe,” she said.
Be safe. In the history of moms, has there ever been a more useless declaration? My mom isn’t stupid, of course. She knows saying “be safe” won’t make me any safer. She knows that hugging me won’t make me any safer either. Still, she rushed over and hugged me because even if I wasn’t gaga for that stuff lately, and even if that stuff wouldn’t prevent me from blowing up, she couldn’t let me leave her sight without at least squeezing the ever-living fuck out of me.